Interdisciplinary lecture seriesCompletion of Data Worlds I - Introduction to Data Science259 students successfully complete the interdisciplinary lecture series Data Worlds I

1 April 2022

Photo: markus spiske / unsplash

The lecture series ‚Data Worlds I: Introduction to Data Science’ started in the winter semester 2021/22 with the launch of the DDLitLab project. The lecture laid the foundation for interdisciplinary data literacy education in the Studium Generale programme at Universität Hamburg. The aim of the programme is to provide students of all subjects with basic knowledge of data analysis and data science and to promote their critical and reflective handling of data and data-driven technologies.

The lecture was organised by lecturers from the WiSo and MIN faculties. While Prof. Dr Kai-Uwe-Schnapp (Political Science, in particular Methods) and Prof. Dr Henning Lohmann (Sociology, Methods of Empirical Social Research) dealt with the concept of data and presented basic analysis and machine learning techniques, Prof. Dr Norbert Ritter (Computer Science, Distributed Systems and Information Systems) and Prof. Dr Wolfram Wingerath (Data Science, University of Oldenburg) explained current standards for storing large, constantly changing data sets. Prof Dr Ingrid Schirmer (Computer Science, Information Technology Design and Gender Perspectives) rounded off the lecture together with Fabian Burmeister and Christian Kurz with an overview of the conditions and influences of data ecosystems.

The course took place online in an inverted classroom format. In addition to the lecturers' videos, which were made available to the students in advance, there were live sessions every Monday evening in which the topics of the week were discussed. In this way, the event not only taught basic practices of working with data, but also showed how an interdisciplinary course can be didactically implemented in the digital space and made accessible to a broad audience. In the first run, 259 students from all faculties have already successfully completed the course.

In the 2022 summer semester, the lecture series ‘Data Worlds II: Reflection on Data Worlds’ will continue Data Literacy Education in the Studium Generale. The focus will be on the ethical, legal and social conditions and consequences of a datafied world. These will also be analysed by an interdisciplinary team. Involved are: Dr Julia Niemann-Lenz, Prof Dr Katharina Kleinen-von Königslöw (both Communication Science), Prof Dr Ingrid Schneider (Political Science), Prof Dr Judith Simon (Ethics of Information Technology), Prof Dr Wolfgang Schulz (Law).

The continuation in the summer semester is based on the topics of the first one, but can also be attended independently.